


drown me with a passion

by t4tterdemalion



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Batshit Crazy Spot Conlon, Blood, Blood and Injury, Boys Kissing, Drowning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gambling, Hurt/Comfort, I don't know ANYTHING about New York geography, I don't think it counts as canon-typical violence when the canon is a Disney movie musical, Learning to Swim, M/M, MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING FOR DROWNING THAT IS LITERALLY A MAIN THEME IN THIS FIC, Mutual Pining, Out of Character, Post-Canon, Protective Spot Conlon, Racetrack Higgins Cannot Swim, Swimming, Violence, but not emotionally tho, but spot beats the shit out of some people, probably, so watch out for that, spot is actually intelligent, the accents...I can't even begin to explain how inconsistent and messy they are, they're gay mary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:09:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27394759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t4tterdemalion/pseuds/t4tterdemalion
Summary: Spot smiles, suddenly, and it isn’t bloodthirsty or hard. “Come back to the docks tomorrow and I’ll teach you.”“Teach me what?”“Teach you to swim.” Spot rolls his eyes, still grinning, and starts to walk back into Brooklyn, yelling back over his shoulder, “How else am I supposed to keep ya from drownin’ in my territory?”
Relationships: Spot Conlon/Racetrack Higgins
Comments: 27
Kudos: 48





	drown me with a passion

**Author's Note:**

> "i would like to enter you through your eyes;  
> to enter the coolness  
> of their blue,  
> to swim in you  
> as the vast dark waves of memory  
> float over my head, and drown me  
> with a passion.  
> the passion of a blue-grey past,  
> unknown."  
> \- fear of drowning, by annabel cruz
> 
> okay well I guess for the purposes of this story here’s some info dumping: in this story, Race doesn’t get completely free passage into Brooklyn until almost two years after the strike, making Race like 18 or about to turn 18 and Spot 17  
> it doesn’t explicitly say anywhere how old Race is, the closest I can get is “between 16 to 20” and since he’s so damn short in the movie I’m going with race being 16 and spot being 15 in the movie canon  
> also for the purposes of this, they know each other, but they aren’t super close (I know, sad, but they get there.)  
> theoretically, Race was born in Manhattan, lived in Brooklyn as a kid, and then moved to Manhattan and became a newsie after his whole family died in a fire, so he knew Spot from when he lived in Brooklyn as a little kid, but he blocked all of that out bc trauma ig?  
> so he forgot that he ever knew Spot before Spot rose to power a couple years before the strike and started letting him sell in Brooklyn.  
> at the start of this, they aren’t like, friends, but they know of each other and have a business agreement
> 
> I had to work with what I knew which was watching the movie and the musical about a week ago and having a lot of election stress and doing some cursory googling and obsessing over spot conlon's eyes (can you tell)  
> but now this mess is here for u to read and enjoy?

Walking away from a successful game of cards always felt like the most risky part to Racetrack.

There was always that moment when he turned his back, when he felt the poor scrubs he’d just cleaned out watch him with that hot resentment that might boil over any second into revenge. If the moment broke then their eyes didn’t touch him, and he walked away with adrenaline pounding quick in his throat, hands casually in his pockets with a death grip on the cash.

But if the winnings were too much, or someone was in the wrong mood, then there would be quick footsteps behind him, maybe a muttered, vicious curse or a stirring of fabric as a shiv came out of the folds of a vest and darted towards his back.

Then he got to run.

And boy, could he run.

There was more than one reason he was called Racetrack, and the poor sheep he’d just conned were usually left huffing in the stinking air of a back alley somewhere while Racetrack kept on going, sprinting like a prize horse, hopping fences twice his height with tricks learned over years of narrow escapes. But today, he couldn’t run.

Playing cards with the newsies in Brooklyn was always a good time, if your idea of a good time was walking a goddamn tightrope between winning enough to make a profit and losing enough to help the boys tolerate his presence. They’d welcomed him further into their territory after the strike, but making it peacefully to the docks was an achievement few newsies could manage. And somehow, by some miracle, Racetrack is the one who’s made it here close to two years later, sitting pretty and conning the Brooklyn boys out of their spare coin right under the nose of their fair and petrifying leader, Spot fucking Conlon.

Okay, so he might be on reasonable terms with the guy, having somehow managed to hang around enough to make it into the list of people Spot didn’t want to murder in the days of the strike, and Spot might have been allowing him to sell in Brooklyn since he rose to power, and they might sometimes see each other in the street and nod, Race smiling cockily and Spot not-scowling, but that didn’t mean they were _close._ Spot made Race nervous, and Race was sure he annoyed the hell out of Spot.

 _Speaking of Spot,_ Race thought, fighting the urge to hunch his shoulders and make himself small, _guy’s got a stare like cold needles and it’s runnin’ me through._

The King of Brooklyn sat up above them, looking down from a rickety wooden platform, and Race can’t tell if it’s to make sure no one fucks with the Manhattan boy and messes up the still-tentative peace between all the boroughs, or if Spot is just watching him cheat.

Race clenches his jaw so hard it hurts and tries not to look too fidgety about having his back to the end of the dock, caged in with newsies on all three sides of the crate they were using as a table. Water makes him nervous, which is funny for a kid who lives on an island, but the other thing funny about Race is that he’s a kid who lives on an island and can’t swim.

What he can do is beat these suckers at cards, and he proceeds to do so with a slightly incautious speed and uncharacteristic sloppiness. Racetrack knows it was foolish to try and rush through the game, but he keeps looking down between the boards at his feet and seeing the darkness of the water looking back at him, and he keeps having to swallow down the urge to vault the table and bolt for dry land.

Finally, Race scrapes his winnings out of the center of the table, hiding the shake in his hands with an easy laugh, grinning around his cigar and tipping his hat and wishing the other players better luck next time. He’s almost out, making it around the table and edging past the last player, when he looks down and sees how close his feet are to the lip of the dock.

His breath catches and he stumbles a little, and that’s when he realizes that he hadn’t been paying attention to the guys behind him. Racetrack spins, arms going up to protect his face, but they’re already on him, and he ducks back to avoid the arm reaching for his collar but then a hand shoves him from the side and he reaches for something, anything, but the hand shoves him again and he falls.

His first thought when he hits the water is that he expected it to be colder. Racetrack thrashes, reaching for the light of the surface, fingers brushing air for one second, but the weight of the water drags him away. His lungs burn, and he realizes suddenly that he’s going to die.

Over the rushing of the water and the pounding of his heart he can hear distant shouting from up above, but he knows that they don’t know he’s drowning, won’t figure it out until it’s too late. _At least I’ll die with their money in my pockets,_ Racetrack thinks grimly, and then he gasps for air and the water pours in and he claws at his throat, vision going narrow and dark, and he hears movement in the water above him, knows they won’t get to him in time, and the darkness swallows him whole.

\---

The next thing he knows is a warm palm between his shoulder blades as he coughs up half the river, and Spot Conlon’s voice gone icy and sharp in that way it does when he’s royally pissed off. Race cracks his eyes open and sees a circle of Brooklyn newsies and shuts his eyes again, groaning.

“Goddammit, Jamie, I told all ‘a you not to touch him! He’s a fuckin’ ambassador!”

“But our money—“

“I don’t care if he pickpocketed you and then laughed in ya face, you take it to me before you go pushin’ other newsies offa the docks,” Spot snaps, “ _Especially_ without knowin’ if they can even swim!”

Racetrack winces, knowing he would be flushed with embarrassment if he weren’t suddenly freezing cold. His teeth chatter and he clenches his jaw to stop it, but Spot stops suddenly in the middle of tearing Jamie a new one.

“Someone go get me a blanket, we’ve gotta get him dry before he gets sick and Kelly shows up and tries to kill me himself.”

“M’ fine,” Race manages, shifting to get his feet under him so he can stand, but the hand on his back becomes an arm around his shoulders, and he’s yanked back down so quick he almost falls into Spot’s lap. “Hey—“

“Shut up and siddown, Race,” Spot orders, and Racetrack would be bristling at taking orders from this overconfident Brooklyn prick, but he’s just realized that the arm holding him down belongs to _Spot fucking Conlon,_ who is deadly and clever and has his arm draped over Race’s shoulders like it’s nothing at all. Race’s arm is pressed into the side of his chest, for Christ’s sake, and Spot is just as soaked as he is, which means—

“Did you dive offa that platform to get me?”

Spot looks at him sideways, mouth set in a tight snarl.

Race stutters, “I— I mean, someone pulled me out—“

“Yes, you moron, I saved your life, why didn’t ya tell me you can’t swim? You shouldn’t be anywhere near th’ docks without knowin’.”

Racetrack looks down, shivering. “I dunno, never learned.”

Spot looks at him with those sharp eyes, considering, and Race twitches with the instinct to run, but some kid breaks through the crowd with a tattered blanket and Spot turns to the task of making sure Race is dry before he has to walk all the way back to Manhattan.

The sun is getting low before Spot deems his clothes dry enough to wear without catching cold, and Race finally makes it off of that damn dock, dirty pavement welcoming his feet. He knows Spot is tailing him to the bridge, but he’s not in the mood to evade him, and in a weird way it makes him feel safer, being watched so closely.

Racetrack sighs and puts his hands into his pockets, lamenting his cigar and all the money that had been lost in the water, and steps forwards to start the long trudge across the bridge. Clear footsteps sound on the Brooklyn street behind him, and Race stops, holds himself still.

“Racetrack,” Spot calls, “You usually finish sellin’ early, yeah?”

“Yeah, most days,” Race says slowly, turning to face Spot.

Spot smiles, suddenly, and it isn’t bloodthirsty or hard. “Come back to the docks tomorrow and I’ll teach you.”

“Teach me what?”

“Teach you to swim.” Spot rolls his eyes, still grinning, and starts to walk back into Brooklyn, yelling back over his shoulder, “How else am I supposed to keep ya from drownin’ in my territory?”

\---

Race wasn’t going to go, he really wasn’t, no way did he need to be ridiculed by every newsie in Brooklyn while Spot called him a moron and probably saved him from drowning again… but then again it was an order from Spot Conlon, and when the King of Brooklyn told you to do something, you better do it and make it quick.

Plus, Racetrack is curious. Spot didn’t smile like that too often, and Race wonders why the hell he would waste that smile on a card counting newsie from Manhattan.

So he drops his bag with Davey and Les after his last pape is sold, and he heads over the goddamn bridge.

Spot finds him before he even sees the water, falling into step as they move through the streets, leading him past the point of turning for the usual docks. Race trails after him, uneasy, but Spot moves confidently through alleyways and into what looks like a tiny boatyard, rundown and near abandoned. None of the boats are actually in the water, and as they enter the yard an old man sticks his head out of the boathouse and waves at Spot.

Spot waves back and saunters out onto the dock, which is crumbling a little at the edges and uncomfortably low in the water, but doesn’t give at his weight. Race cautiously follows, watching his own feet closely enough that he almost runs into Spot’s back.

He stumbles back a step and Spot rolls his eyes and grabs him by the sleeve of his shirt, holding him steady. “Ya got shit balance for a runner.”

 _You pay attention enough to know I’m a runner,_ Racetrack thinks incredulously, but out loud he gripes, “S’not me, it’s the water. Makes me sorta dizzy, I guess.”

Spot sighs, but he doesn’t sound too annoyed, and he shoves Race down to sit on the dock. “Alright, that’s the first thing. Take your shoes off.”

Grumbling, Racetrack does as he’s told, and looks over to see Spot with his pants rolled up to his knees, feet and legs bare and dangling in the water. It’s so damn weird seeing Spot look relaxed that Race forgets what he was doing for a second until Spot looks over at him sitting there with his mouth hanging open and sneers at him. Race coughs and looks away, rolling his pants up and then quickly, before he can think too hard about it, scooting over next to Spot and shoving his legs into the water.

It’s hot, and the water is cool, and Race can see their legs shine pale beneath the surface. He kicks his feet, and the feeling is the same heaviness of the water dragging him down, but somehow it’s almost comforting, like a thick blanket.

“So why ya scared of the water?”

Race’s head snaps over to Spot, ready to argue, but Spot is looking at him, and up close the pale color of his eyes is less piercing than it is intensely serious.

“I’m not scared of the water,” Race attempts lamely, and Spot makes an irritated noise.

“I’m not callin’ ya chicken, Race, I’m askin’ you a question. Why’s you afraid of the water?”

Racetrack looks at Spot’s ankles and thinks about it.

They sit there for the afternoon, and at some point Spot lays back on the dock and tips his hat down over his eyes. He looks oddly younger with his eyes covered, or at least less intimidating, and Race relaxes a little.

When the light starts turning the sky orange, Race nudges Spot and startles him out of sleep.

They walk back to the bridge together, Spot yawning and Race hiding a half-hysterical smile at the idea of this Spot Conlon, sleepy-eyed with rumpled hair, ruling with an iron fist over the most violent group of boys Race has ever known.

“Come back tomorrow, and think about that question,” Spot says, wiping a hand over his face and turning back into Brooklyn. Race walks backwards for a minute, watching him go, and suddenly thinks about just how long it might have been since Spot’s had a minute to rest.

This process goes on for a week, Race meeting Spot after selling, the empty, quiet dock, their legs in the water, and always that question rattling around in the back of Racetrack’s mind.

 _Why’re ya afraid of the water, Race?_ Spot’s voice asks in the lulls between customers, in between the tolling of the distribution bells, right before he settles into his bunk at night, and Racetrack grits his teeth around his replacement cigar and tells himself he’s not scared, he doesn’t need to learn to swim, his legs do just fine on dry land, but he keeps making the hike across Brooklyn every day to watch Spot sleep next to him and stare at the water.

After a week Race is getting bored, and when he’s bored he gets irritated. He comes to the dock late one day and Spot is already there laid out with his hat on his face. Race stomps pointedly down the dock and does his best to loom over Spot, who lifts his hat up and squints at him.

“I thought you said you were gonna teach me to swim.”

“I am,” Spot says lazily, and Race wishes he didn’t look so soft right now or he’d be way more annoyed.

“How the hell is this teachin’ me anything? I’m not even all the way in the water!”

Spot laughs at him, just lays there and laughs, not unkindly, but it makes Racetrack bristle with indignation. “I’m not letting ya get in the water until you can answer my question.”

Race throws up his hands in exasperation. “Goddammit, just let me get in the water already!”

“Yes!” Spot shouts, sitting up so suddenly it makes Race jump back, then retreat further as Spot gets to his feet and gets right up in Racetrack’s face. “Now that’s what I wanna hear!”

“What—“

“You came down the dock today without hesitatin’. You had your feet in the water for a week without gettin’ up an runnin’. You just asked me to let you get in the water. Don’t tell me I ain’t taught you nothin’.” Spot takes him by the shoulders and looks at him without a hint of his normal sharpness. “Now I want you to tell me why you afraid of the water.”

Racetrack is shaken to silence, pinned in place by Spot’s grip, and he doesn’t have an answer, but his mouth opens without his permission to say something, anything that makes Spot keep looking at him with his whole face open like that. “It’s, it’s….somethin’ about it not being solid, yanno? I don’t trust it. I understand runnin’, the ground ain’t gonna move around on me. The water…” Race trails off, shrugging his shoulders a little, but Spot looks at him and nods, claps him on the shoulders and grins.

“Now, ya can get in the water.”

\---

Race doesn’t really get all the way in the water at first. There’s a sunken part of the dock that’s hidden beneath the surface at the end, and Spot tells him to start with that.

So Race strips down to his shorts and sits on the damn dock again. The water comes up to his waist sitting down, and it laps at him gently, like cool fingers stroking over his skin. If he thinks too hard about the depths beyond the edge of the platform, he gets a horrible feeling that something will reach up and grab him by the ankle and drag him down, so he focuses on Spot’s even breathing just behind him, and gradually, over a couple days, Racetrack uncurls from the center of the sunken dock to sprawl across the slick surface, leaning back on his hands with his face tipped up to the sky.

“Hey,” he says one day, and Spot lifts his head from where he’s spread out on the dock again. “You done teachin’ me this part yet?”

Spot laughs quietly, something he’s been doing more often when they’re together, and something that makes Race glow with accomplishment. “Stick ya legs over the edge and I’ll let you move on.”

Race scoffs, scooting forwards and shoving his legs down into the deeper water. “Easy, Spotty, come on.”

There’s silence from behind him, and Race looks over his shoulder to see Spot look quickly away from him, like he’d been staring. “Alright, fine, you got me,” Spot sighs, hauling himself upright.

Racetrack grins. “Disappointed you can’t just lay there and sleep?”

“You kiddin’? I been bored outta my mind waiting for this since day one,” Spot complains, but there’s a teasing note in his voice that makes Race want to see his face, cause he knows Spot is smiling again, so he pulls his legs up and turns all the way around, and oh.

“Uh. Spot?”

Spot looks back at him over his shoulder, his shirt hanging from his elbows and trousers gone. He has… he has a lot of scars. And his arms are… really something. Must come from all that slingshotting and fighting, Race thinks, his mouth suddenly dry.

“What?” Spot drops the shirt and turns, and he is smiling, directly at Racetrack, pale eyes lit up by the sun, and Race cannot look away. “We’re gonna swim, ain’t we?”

“Ye—yeah, but I thought you was just gonna, yanno, sit up there and direct me or somethin.”

Spot backs up a few steps, swinging his arms, setting his foot back like he’s about to run a race. “Nah, that’s no fun. Duck.”

“Huh?”

“Duck,” Spot repeats, and then he’s running straight for the end of the dock and Race ducks, his chin level with the water as he watches Spot bring his arms back and up and jump from the last board in one fluid motion, flying over the submerged deck like a thrown dart, diving into the water hands first, body taut in one clean line.

“Holy shit!”

Spot surfaces, smoothing his hair back from his face, and Race stares at him like he’s just grown another head or something. “Where’d you learn to swim, the Olympics or somethin’?”

“Or somethin’,” Spot says, swimming over to rest his elbows on the boards. “I’m not teachin’ you that. Now c’mere.”

\---

Race learns, over the next few weeks, that Spot swims like a goddamn fish. He also learns how to tread water, how to float, and how to get up on the dock without using the underwater part as support.

“This is how you survive in the water,” Spot tells him, “This is what keeps you from drownin’ until someone, probably me, can help. Learn this first, then I’ll teach you to swim for real.”

So Race learns, and then he freaks out, and then he learns some more. Actually, he freaks out more than once, but Spot is always there in a second, hands strong around his ribs or his biceps, supporting both of them in the water with ease. Race only has one major moment of fear, when Spot asked if he could try jumping in, and it immediately reminded him of that falling crushing burning sensation and he started breathing a little funny, but Spot looked at him and took him by the wrists and pulled him down to kneel on the lower dock and feel the water and breathe until he was okay again.

Spot is… different.

Race watches him when he sees him away from the dock, and he knows that other guys might think he only sees money and horses but he notices things, alright, and he knows that the other Spot is still there, the cold, sharp one who has bloody knuckles and killer aim and scares the pants off little newsie kids. Spot loves to fight, he honestly does, and he moves with a carefulness that shows he’s conserving energy for the next battle, his cane in his belt a weapon, not a crutch. He pulls the Brooklyn kids to heel easily, professionally. He snarls and spits and swears and slaps his boys upside the back of the head, but of course, he does all those things to Racetrack too, only with that same carefulness of movement that shows he’s not going all out, doesn’t want to do real damage. It makes sense in a way, to see Spot laughing with blood in his teeth in the street, and then hours later watch him laugh with water in his hair and swim away, splashing Race as he goes.

But sometimes the lines will blur, like when Race shows up to swim with bruises and cuts from getting soaked, and Spot’s eyes go icy, and the next day he hears the kid that soaked him got shoved in the harbor, and it warms him a little inside. Or maybe Spot will catch him watching from a street corner, and his face will go soft for a second and Race will think about it all day.

He looks forward to getting to the dock early enough that he can see Spot’s first perfect, clean dive into the water, watch him move under the surface like one of those half-fish people his sisters liked to hear stories about, like he was made to be there. Race especially looks forward to when he can just sit and watch Spot swim on his own, backflipping off the dock, floating calmly on the surface, swimming down and bringing back random things off the bottom for Racetrack to sit and poke at.

He knew Spot was strong before, he’d seen Spot knock a guy out with one punch, but feeling it was different. Spot had gotten taller, shoulders even broader, wiry muscle built up from the regular routine of beating the shit out of people. Spot could support them both in the water, even when Race was just dead weight. His hands were fine-boned but rough, and Race could feel them on his body hours after he left the dock, pressed his own fingers compulsively into the places Spot had held him tightest.

There was something strange and warm and wild building in him, something that had to do with Spot. It reminded him a little of the feeling of drowning.

Racetrack saw a kid really drown once, a little shrimp of a thing. A guy had pulled him out of the water by the scruff of his neck, limp and soaked, and Race had watched him press once, twice, on the kid’s still chest, water bubbling up from blue lips, and then the guy had leaned down and breathed into the kid’s mouth, feeding him his air, and the kid had choked and gagged and woken up, shaking and crying but alive.

Racetrack looks at Spot’s mouth sometimes and thinks about what his breath might taste like. He wonders guiltily what it would feel like to have another boy’s mouth sealed over his, slick with water and warm, chapped, maybe, but Spot’s mouth looked soft, pink, almost like a girl’s but better because it was attached to Spot.

Listen, he’s not queer, okay? He knows a bunch of guys are, don’t even get him started on the love triangle between David, Jack, and Crutchie, but he isn’t like that.

Well, he might be.

And if he is, so what? He already lives a mostly illegal life anyway. But he can’t be queer for Spot Conlon, the King of Brooklyn, who is definitely, certainly, absolutely not interested in him even a little bit.

 _But maybe he is, dumbass,_ whispers the weird swelling ball of something in his chest, and Race says “Shut it,” and a customer gives him a weird look.

Race smiles a little manically. “Sometimes I hear voices. Buy a paper from a poor, addled boy, miss?”

Later that day at the docks it rains, a gentle summer rain, and Race scrambles onto the dock to get their clothes and his precious cigar under shelter. On his way back, scraping his wet curls out of his eyes, he slips in a puddle and for a minute he’s back on the high docks, falling six feet down into the water to struggle and suffocate while the Brooklyn Newsies laugh, but then he hits the water sideways and remembers that he knows how to tread.

Race is slowly kicking his way to the surface, managing to fight off the panic pretty well, when he feels arms around his waist.

Spot drags him up so fast it makes his head spin, and when he breaks the surface and sits down hard on the underwater planks, he’s suddenly pressed so closely against Spot he can feel his heart beat fast against his shoulder. Spot’s still got both arms wrapped around him, and Race realizes he’s sitting between Spot’s legs.

“Hey, hey, Race, you okay?” Spot says almost anxiously into his ear.

“Why’d you interrupt me, Spotty, I was almost swimmin’,” Racetrack complains, and Spot lets out a breath that turns into laughter. Race leans back against his chest, then checks himself and starts to lean away, but Spot hooks his chin over Race’s shoulder, his breath warm on Race’s neck, and Racetrack’s skin flushes hot.

In his bunk that night with his hands pressed against his eyes he remembers how it had felt to have Spot’s body up against his, and blushes red all over again.

“For fuck’s sake,” he groans out loud into the dark, and Snipeshooter stretches a leg across and kicks his bunk.

“Shuddup, Race, tryna sleep over here.”

“You shuddup,” Race returns half-heartedly, and shoves his face into his pillow. He is so, so queer for Spot Conlon.

\---

The next day there’s an event, a late afternoon race, and Race takes another stack of papes to sell there. He pulls aside one of the Brooklyn kids at Newsie Square, one of the smaller ones, and tells him to tell the King that he would be late. It turns out to be very late, late enough that he thinks about not going. Surely Spot is in the Brooklyn Lodgings by now, probably annoyed that Race hadn’t shown. The sunlight is already fading into that rich orange color when Race spots the kid he’d chosen to be his messenger darting towards him.

“Spot says come to th’ high docks when ya done,” the kid recites, and Race scrubs him absently on the head and hands him a nickel.

The high docks. Race sells papers on autopilot for an hour, nerves tingling. He isn’t sure if he’s ready for the high docks, but Spot wants him there, so after he finally offloads every pape in the exit rush after the race, he sprints most of the way there. He stops in an alley, takes a minute to unbutton his shirt a little more, scrubs his hand through his hair and pulls his hat back down over it.

“What the hell am I doin’,” Race mutters to himself, and before he can think better of it, he takes off towards the docks. Instinct leads him to the one with the high platform, where he knows Spot usually holds court. It’s odd seeing it deserted, but Race’s heart is pounding because he knows it isn’t deserted, not really, there’s a slim figure standing at the end of the dock, and the name leaps off his tongue.

“Spot!”

Spot turns from the water and the sunset blooms behind him. Race’s feet stutter to a halt.

His shirt is a dark blue, open almost to the waist and rolled up past the elbow, putting his chest and arms on display. His skin practically glows in the light, and without his hat his hair is almost golden, and his fucking eyes flash the clear blue of a winter sky. He’s so goddamn beautiful that Racetrack stops breathing.

“Race,” Spot says, and pauses, looking oddly flushed, and Race wants to kiss him so badly.

“Sorry ’m late,” he says instead, hoping his face isn’t betraying him and ducking his head sheepishly just to make sure.

“S’okay.” Spot hesitates, uncharacteristically, and Racetrack’s heart is in his throat. “Ya don’t hafta try and swim here, not if you ain’t ready.”

Race grimaces a little, but says, “I’ll try,” unsure now that he’s remembering what they’ve actually come here for.

So Spot shows him where the ladders are, the handholds carved into the pilings, where there’s a big rock hidden under the shadows of the dock— _Don’t swim into it, dumbass, kids run they heads into it all th’ time_ —and how to scramble up and sit on the wooden crossbraces to rest. The water is more active here, the waves stronger, and Race has to sit and dangle his legs for a while before he can really talk himself into getting in.

Spot sits with him for a little bit, but Race can tell he’s itching to be in the water, and finally Spot climbs up the pilings like a monkey and disappears onto the dock overhead.

Race hears the soft noises of clothes being dropped into a pile, and he expects to see Spot launch himself out over his head into the water, but instead he hears footsteps retreat down the dock, and then a distant yell. He clambers up, less gracefully than Spot, but he makes it, and squints against the setting sun for a minute until he sees Spot.

On the next dock over, there’s another one of those rickety towers, and Spot is waving at him from the very top.

“You’re crazy!” Race shouts over the water, and he hears Spot laugh. He’s hit with a sudden pang of real fear, watching Spot back up to get a short running start. Race thinks about the rock lurking under his feet and knows there might be more out there, waiting to shatter Spot’s bones, break his body into little matchstick pieces.

“Spot!”

Spot is already running, his hands going back and up and he jumps, and the roaring in Race’s ears goes quiet. The last rays of sunlight silhouette his narrow, lean body, and the dive is perfect as always, and Racetrack realizes that this is what Spot must have done on that day months ago, to get to him in time, and then Spot hits the water and vanishes.

“ _Spot!_ ”

Race rushes to lean over the edge, hands tight on the railing, scanning the water’s surface, and when he sees a dark blonde head pop up he feels the fear flood out of him.

Spot is swimming towards him with easy strokes, and Race tears off his damn clothes and almost falls off the piling trying to get down to meet him.

“Don’t just do shit like that, ya moron, that’s gotta be dangerous! Quit screwin’ around, ya know I can’t save ya if you hit ya head on th’ bottom or somethin!”

Spot is laughing at him but his eyes are a little wide, probably because no one ever calls the King of Brooklyn a moron. “’S deep enough, Race, don’t worry so much.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay, don’t pull that shit unless I start drownin’ again, huh?” It’s getting harder and harder to see, the light fading fast now, and Race looks down at the dark water with a shudder. “’S too dark to swim now, anyways, sorry for wastin’ ya time.”

“Not a waste,” Spot grunts, climbing over him, and oh, that wet fabric didn’t hide much. Race swallows hard and follows him up.

They dress silently, quickly, Racetrack sneaking guilty glances at Spot’s back, and when they’re done and making their way back up the dock it’s very close to truly dark, and it’s making Race nervous.

“Hey, Spot, I’m gonna walk off th’ dock or somethin, ain’t you got a light?”

Spot is suddenly still in the dark beside him. “Sh.”

“Don’t _sh_ me, ya—“

Spot’s hand darts out to press over Racetrack’s mouth, and his eyes narrow. “No, I mean shuddup, d’ya hear that?”

There’s a heavy thumping approaching from the shore. Workboots, probably about three pairs of them, and the smell of cheap cigarettes and whiskey. And then a lantern, shining too brightly into their faces, and a sneering voice.

“You two newsies?”

Race stands up as tall as he can and Spot shoves his hands in his pockets casually, staring right back into the lantern.

“Who’s askin’?”

One of the men spits, and Spot’s lip curls in disgust.

“Have a good day sellin’?”

Race keeps his face stone, tries to look indifferent, shrugs. “Maybe.”

The one holding the lantern shifts, allows the other two to step forward, and they spread out enough to block the dock completely. Race can feel his leg jittering but he can’t stop it, he needs to run and take Spot with him, they can lose these clowns in the Brooklyn streets, but there’s no way out now.

“Whaddya say you spot us a few dollars? We’re thirsty.”

Spot glances once at Race and his eyes are deadly sharp, but it doesn’t scare Race anymore.

“Go ta hell,” Spot snaps, and the middle guy says “Get him,” and then Race lands hard on his ass, tumbling a few feet from the shove and rolling to his feet, fists curled and ready, but the glint of metal stops him cold.

The two taller guys have Spot held tightly by the arms, pulled so far back that it has to hurt, and the other one’s set down his lantern and pulled out a switchblade. The tip wavers beneath Spot’s chin, and Spot has his long neck arched back, chest heaving.

“C’mon, _your majesty_ , hand over the coin.”

“Hey!” Race yells, and the knife guy considers Race, who’s boiling mad and starting towards them, and jerks his head. One of the goons lets go of Spot and then Race is choking and gagging on the surface of the dock, curled around where a hard fist had gotten him in the gut.

He hears a silent and furious scuffle and then a hiss of pain, and manages to blink away the spots in his eyes to see knife guy drawing his blade away from Spot’s neck, a few drops of red falling. Race is lifted suddenly off the ground, held by the back of his shirt, and looking beneath his feet he sees nothing but darkness, hears water lapping against the pilings, and freezes.

“Just hand it over, alright, we know you got it, you’re Conlon, you take care of all the little rats in Brooklyn.”

“I don’t fuckin’ have it,” Spot snarls, and Race can’t see anything but the drop to the water below him but he can hear the thread of fear in Spot’s voice, “Leave him outta this, he’s not even Brooklyn.”

“Oho, no? Guess ya won’t care then if I do this—“

Race scrabbles desperately at nothing but air as the grip on him loosens and he slips an inch.

“ _Fuck!_ Stop, just—“

“Give me the money, Conlon, come on—“

“ _I don’t have any on me_ , you fuckin—“

Race is only held by his collar now, and it crushes his throat, reduces his air to the barest whisper so that he wheezes pitifully, and his heartbeat is loud in his skull, and Spot’s voice strains into desperation.

“I’ll get ya the goddamn money, just let ‘im down!”

The knife guy laughs nastily. “You heard what he said. Let him down.”

Race feels the fabric around his neck loosen as his feet touch the boards, and he gasps for air gratefully, looking up through watering eyes to where Spot has his arms wrenched back and that knife still dancing around his throat. Their eyes meet, and then the knife guy laughs again and kicks out almost casually, catching Race square in the chest, and Race opens his mouth to yell but he’s already over the side.

The last thing he hears before the water swallows him is Spot screaming, “ _He can’t fuckin’ swim!_ ”

\---

It’s incredibly dark.

Race has never been in the water at night before, and he doesn’t like how suddenly cold it feels, how it’s hard to tell which way is up, and the familiar panic starts to rise up in him again but then his head breaks the surface randomly and he hears a groan of pain and feels a hot flash of rage. The bastards are soaking Spot on the dock up above him, and he’ll be damned if he lets them get away with it.

So Racetrack keeps his head above the water, and he fuckin’ swims. He’s not as good as Spot, but it doesn’t matter because he can feel the water part around him, and he’s moving instead of sinking, and he kicks off his shoes and struggles out of his shirt and then it’s easier, smoother.

Race swims beneath the dock like a cruising shark, keeping his movements quiet and steady, and he latches onto a slick pile and listens.It’s quieter above, but he can hear Spot struggling. He casts around him for a weapon, and gets nothing but water and scraped knuckles from that damn giant rock.Race grits his teeth. He knows what he has to do.

Before he can talk himself out of it, he gulps air and ducks under the surface, using the piling as a guide to the bottom, and reaches blindly for a chunk of stone or brick.

Gasping, he surfaces, weighing what feels like half a brick in his hand. Good enough, he’s running out of time. Climbing the piling one handed is a task, but he makes it up to where he can see what’s going on.

Spot is fighting like a rabid animal, jaw snapping as he twists in the arms of the two guys holding him down, practically frothing at the mouth. He’s growling something, constant and low, and his eyes are wide and empty and fixed on the side of the pier where Racetrack disappeared.

The guy with the knife is cursing, holding his face, and when he takes his hand away Race feels a dark bolt of pleasure and amusement seeing the bloody bite mark on his cheek. He stalks closer to Spot, who lunges abruptly at him, spitting, voice going loud and guttural and Race can hear what he’s saying now.

“ _If he’s dead I’ll kill ya, if he’s dead I’ll kill ya, I will fuckin’ kill you, I’ll_ kill _ya!!_ ”

“Filthy little mad dog,” knife guy snaps, “Someone shoulda put you down a long time ago.” He holds the blade with violent purpose now, and Race creeps further onto the dock, holding his brick ready.

Spot is thrashing wildly, and knife guy grunts in annoyance. “Hold ‘im still, dammit, so’s I can get this over with an throw ‘im in with the other one.”

Spot makes a horrible pained noise as his arms are yanked back even further, but he bares his teeth and laughs, looking at the blade of the knife with matching eyes. “Come get it, then.”

And then Race leaps from the shadows and cracks the knife guy across the back of the skull with all his strength plus a brick. He goes down like a sack of wet meat and Race hurls the chunk of masonry into the face of one of the other guys and hears the crunch of a nose breaking.

Spot gets one good elbow in the same guy’s gut and then he’s free, and as Race drops his weight on the ringleader, pinning his wrist with a knee and snatching up the knife, Spot turns on his heel silently and comes down on the last guy like a fucking wild animal. There’s screaming, rough and hoarse and then cut off abruptly, and Race pitches the knife into the ocean and looks over just in time to see Spot slam the goon down by the neck so hard that there’s a sound like an egg cracking, and the guy’s eyes go blank and flat.

The other one has gotten up, clutching his nose, and steps forwards to try a swing but Spot moves like liquid under his arm right into his center of balance and collapses him with one knee to the groin. The guy pukes instantly, then pukes again when Spot takes his foot in both hands and twists it hard, a dull cracking traveling up his leg.

Spot drops his destroyed limb like it’s nothing, and Race thinks he sees the guy pass out.

Then Spot turns to face him, and his eyes are sub-fucking-zero. Race gets up, moves to stand at his side, but it’s like he doesn’t even see Race. He’s looking at the crumpled figure of the knife guy, who raises his head, opens his eyes, and whimpers.

Race knows how he feels, pinned down by that cold needle gaze.

“Please,” knife guy sobs, and Spot kicks him in the face. Then he breaks his arm. Then he breaks his other arm. There’s more screaming. Blood spatters up Spot’s pant leg.

When it’s quiet again, Spot speaks, rasping but clear. “You might survive.”

He steps over the broken body at his feet and bends almost delicately, blowing out the lantern.

Velvet blackness covers them, and in it Spot takes Racetrack’s hand, and leads him away, up the dock, towards the land.

\---

They make it halfway to Brooklyn’s lodging house before Race pulls Spot to a halt on some empty street corner.

There’s some light to see by now, castoff from windows and guttering streetlamps, and Race can see how tight Spot’s shoulders are, see the dark spatters of blood on his dark blue shirt.

“Spot—“

“I can’t do this here, Race,” Spot grinds out, fingers clenching so tight the bones in Race’s palm grate together for a second.

Race puts his other hand on Spot’s shoulder, softly. “Spotty.”

There’s a visible shudder that moves through Spot’s body that’s like a two-ton weight lifting off him. “Race, I can’t—“

Race’s heart is pounding, and the adrenaline from the fight is still soaring through his veins, but he makes himself be gentle as he moves into Spot’s space, close up against his back, like how he’s seen jockeys approach skittish horses, looping his arm carefully over Spot’s head so that their hands can stay connected.

He rests his chin on Spot’s shoulder, and Spot’s head tips back. “You taught me to swim,” Race says quietly, and Spot inhales sharply, almost like he’s in pain. He lets go of Race’s hand, turns in his arms, and kisses Race so hard it almost makes one of them bleed.

“ _Race_ ,” Spot says into his mouth, “Race, Race, Race.”

“Spot,” Race murmurs back, closing his eyes, tasting salt water and blood. He pulls away and Spot looks stricken, his poker face shattered and cracked open, and Race takes his hand, kisses his split knuckles.

“C'mon,” he urges, and Spot looks at him with something like hope in his eyes, and leads him into the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of want to add in another part where Race dreams about Spot and he as kids, how they used to go dumb little kid shit together, and he had totally forgotten; trauma, yanno, since his whole family died in a fire he blocked out most of his young childhood  
> also if I write smut for this Spot is a power bottom and you will pry that from my cold, dead hands  
> but im posting this like it is so far I think? just because im in love with how it ends
> 
> there's not a lot of people that will ever read this, so if you do.....  
> tell me something in the comments. leave it here for me to find.  
> it doesn't have to be about the story.  
> it just has to be real.


End file.
